


Power Couple Power Outage

by demipunk



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Coming Out, Disaster Gays, Fluff, Gay, platonic fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:29:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24384334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demipunk/pseuds/demipunk
Summary: There is no straight forward Google-able answer on how to tell your accidental boyfriend of the past year that while you’re sure he’s a catch, you’re not that kind of pitcher, is there?
Relationships: Jason Grace & Piper McLean (past)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 62





	Power Couple Power Outage

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve got writer block for my two current multi chapter fics, but thankfully had the juice to write this! It’s based on an extremely specific headcanon set up of mine, because that sparks joy. Hope yall enjoy it as much as i liked writing it <3

She could do this. Piper had handled vengeful gods, the complications that came with having a celebrity parent, _and_ the hostility of her half siblings when they _still_ tried to have an attitude with her. Not exactly effortlessly, because war was messy, paparazzi was messier, and Aphrodite kids redefined the word all on their own. But, she had handled all of it.

What she maybe couldn’t handle was how thrown off her rhythm she was, all because of the realization that the confusion she felt towards Jason wasn’t because she truly wanted them to work and just didn’t know how- It was because she grew more and more certain by the day that this was _never_ going to work.

It felt awful, because Jason was technically… perfect? He was well behaved, kind, responsible, loyal, and Piper knew some other girls would’ve done some very intense meddling in a heartbeat to get their hands on him before her. And Piper knew she had the qualities to match and more, receiving more than her fair share of flirting from new campers that thought themselves smooth. Thankfully the sight of Jason with his arm around her shoulder was easy 13 year old Hermes boy repellent. On paper the schematics of their relationship were sound. The near definition of a power couple, ready for their close up as the prime package deal.

The only thing throwing that picturesque set up was that he was the perfect _boy_ friend. 

Piper realized her problem with the seemingly minor syllable after a particularly close girls night in Rachel’s cave with some of the other campers; Part of it was from listening to their sighs over handsome Apollo guys and macho Ares boys. No matter where she strained her mind to lean, they sparked next to nothing when she thought about them for more than a sharp second. Thankfully they’d skipped over her and many of the other girls in the group who were in relationships, making jokes about how lucky they were instead. Yet having Jason as her _‘other half’_ didn’t feel like a stroke of luck very often. 

Technically, their whole connection was forged by Hera’s quest after all. What _was_ lucky was that they’d become genuinely friends through it, Piper wouldn’t trade that for anything, but what was growing increasingly uncomfortable was that they’d _stayed_ a shoved-together couple even _after_ the mist was broken. From what the jokes about being _‘goals!’_ had taught her, that was what the two were _supposed_ to be. Her mother was the goddess of love, she wasn’t supposed to have these rocky emotions with dating, she was supposed to find love easily. For so long she’d assumed it was because Jason was often away at Camp Jupiter or because the war still sometimes felt like it was just yesterday. Time should fix that for them, right? 

The other part that made her realize her predicament with the ‘ _boy_ ’ issue was what threw the wrench in the time though. It hit her when Annabeth had casually started playing with her hair later in the night. Some Demeter kid had brought a chick flick to project on a sheet strung up along the wall of the cave, and Piper hadn’t even realized how close she’d drifted to her friend until she felt Annabeth's nimble fingers gently combing through her roots. Annabeth didn’t say anything as she did and Piper suspected she really didn’t mean anything by it. Something about the gesture made air catch in Piper’s throat, but she didn’t protest that. It was so small, but even so many hours after Annabeth had weaved those loose braids in her brown hair, Piper couldn’t stop thinking about it. Staring at the ceiling of the Aphrodite cabin, it clicked. 

No wonder she couldn’t force herself to work with it. No wonder everyone's dreamy comments on Jason’s good looks always fell so hollow against her. She’d learned to nod and laugh and compel herself to shrug and agree. Sure, she wasn’t attracted to him, but maybe that was just nervousness, at least she could aesthetically recognize and confirm that he definitely was conventionally attractive, right? That was enough, right?

She’d even learned to accept the gentle pity offered when people would lament how awful it must be to not see him every day like so many other couples at Camp Half Blood had the privilege to do. Love was there, yes, platonically. She missed him the same way she missed any of her close friends when they were busy on quests or vacations. But when she looked at Jason she felt no instinct to sigh about him or star alongside him in a 90’s rom com. Maybe a coming of age or buddy cop movies, but skip her on prom queen and king scenes and any visits to Make Out Point.

  
The friendly feelings she had were what made this revelation so uncomfortable. Its not like she was afraid of being ostracized, there were plenty of openly queer campers, she had no reason to fear homophobia in Camp Half Blood. But it was the thought of losing Jason that scared her, as he didn’t deserve to be her unaware beard for the kind person he was. She owed it to him to stop this train before it could suddenly crash on the future day he found out on his own. Doing this was going to hurt, but it was better than the pain that would come if she held it in and instead came out in the middle of some breakdown when she couldn’t fake it anymore. 

That’s why she planned on asking him to meet her by the dock after dinner- But somehow, he beat her to it, slipping it in during a lull in their conversation. “Oh,” She’d laughed and faked a smile across the table at him, “Yeah, that’s totally cool with me!”

The optimist in her strangely wanted to think he just wanted to catch up now that he was back to visit CHB for a bit, because her pessimistic alternative was that he’d sniffed her out and was about to either berate her or worse, cry. Again, she could recognize aesthetics objectively, but no matter how appealing he seemed 90% of the time, Jason was not a pretty crier. Every hot person has their moments after all.   
  


They ended up walking there together, the distance between the loud dining pavilion growing further and further. While they were normally naturals at easy conversation with each other, tonight neither was very chatty. It made the walk feel twice as long. Piper distracted herself with periodic glances towards the stars above as Jason busied himself with kicking a rock as far as he could keep up with. When they finally got there they wordlessly ended up at the very edge, sitting down and nearly skimming their feet across the dark water. For a temperature controlled semi-commune, the camp felt so cold here. 

“I don’t know if you could tell ahead of time what I…” Jason drifted as he seemingly tried to collect himself, “What I want to talk to you about. I kind of hope you don’t.”

“I assume it’s something pretty important,” Piper tried to smile reassuringly, but it didn’t help either of them when they couldn’t look at each other, “But if it helps, I haven’t picked anything up?” She didn’t know if she meant it, her voice rising at the end.

Jason turned towards her, looking confused, “Really?” 

She shrugged in response and took the opportunity to slightly lean into the truth, “Well, the only thing I assumed was that maybe… Maybe you’d realized I wanted to talk too.” As soon as it left her mouth Piper wanted to take it back. Too soon, too fast, she needed to collect herself before-

“You do?” Jason seemed a strange combination of relieved and off put, “I- You can go first then.”

The suggestion made Piper nervous, rushing for cover verbally with a fake laugh to seem merely amused, “No, no, you first, you asked me out here.”

Her lighthearted attempt didn’t land gracefully, rather dragging them into an awkward pause that required Jason to clear his throat, “I know it's cliche but, uh, do you want to do an on 3 deal…?”

For some reason his awkwardness made Piper actually relax, “That _is_ cliche.” She took the risk of trying to catch Jason’s eye to make contact as she spoke gently, “But if you’re sure, let’s just go for it, yeah?” The idea secretly made her heart take up residence in her throat, but whatever got this done the fastest would be so very appreciated. 

Jason nodded, and they hesitantly started to count together, “1… 2… 3…”

For a split second Piper considered jumping in the lake instead but with and urgency that she didn’t even realized she possessed it all spilled out, “ _I’ve realized I can’t date you anymore and it’s not because you’re ugly or rude or anything and I do love you as a friend but I’m pretty sure I’m actually a lesbian._ ” The confession felt like a punch in the gut to say out loud to him but also felt like a boulder was lifted off her chest. She should’ve expected that, she’d heard lots of coming out stories describing similar rushes.

What she absolutely did not expect to hear of Jason’s _‘3’_ was his much shorter but equally urgent reveal, “ _Piper, I’m gay._ ”

The world shook to a stop in the middle of the cosmos. In this suffocating solitude they seemed trapped in the bubble of their admissions.

“What?” Piper’s voice trembled, “You?”

“Me? Wait,” Jason looked sick, “Are you?”

“Yeah, me- I’m-” Her head spun, “Are we seriously both-”

“Yeah,” Jason’s choked reply cut her off as he blinked at her a few times, “I guess we are…?”

“For sure, we are.” Piper agreed almost too firmly, “We both are. That happened.”

“It did.” Jason finally broke their tense eye contact, “It- it really did.”

Another eternal pause, and suddenly Piper burst into real, true, obnoxious laughter. She reeled back, flattening herself down on the dock and clutching her stomach, “Oh my Gods, that- That just happened! We actually did that! We’re disasters!”

“Stop! I don’t know yet if that was funny!” Jason had curled in, holding his head, but Piper could hear his smile, “We just broke up, right?”

“Are you serious- I swear I mean it, as a friend I do love you, but I can’t in good conscious humor the idea that we didn’t.” Piper got up only enough to shake him by the shoulder, “Jason, we just accidentally pulled off being the straightest gay couple this camp has probably ever had for what, a year?” They were coming up on their anniversary technically, a fact that had legitimately never come up between either of them because apparently they both felt no strong emotion towards it, “We’ve accidentally covered each other for over a _year_!”

“I can’t believe it,” Jason groaned, turning towards her with wide eyes, “How? How did we do that?”

“Fuck, man- Compulsory heterosexuality? Godly meddling? We share one dangerously oblivious braincell?” Piper just could not stop laughing, even with Jason admittedly seeming a bit more genuinely shocked. 

The last suggestion did crack him into a laugh, “Apparently, yeah!” 

That did nothing to slow Piper, and they both seemed to just dissolve into their partially grateful, partially astonished cackling. Originally she’d picked the dock for its privacy in case of a worst case scenario, and suspected Jason did it for the same. Now, it instead saved the rest of the camp from having to hear them wheezing. 

Eventually they had to calm down, sliding into more even breathing and ending up looking up at the sky together, smiling to themselves. Piper moved her hand to lightly touch her pinky to Jason’s, “Hey, Jason.”

“Yeah?” His head turned to face her.

Piper appreciated the smile he wore, and appreciated the lack of personal pressure to kiss him for it more. Quietly she spoke, “Thanks for being a good boyfriend. It was my pleasure to keep you shielded from all the straight girls that wanted to hook up with you.”

“Same to you,” Jason nodded and squeezed her hand, “I’d say you’re probably the best clueless lesbian girlfriend that an anxious gay guy could ever accidentally be super closeted with.”

“Only _probably_ ?” Piper feigned being offended, “Wow, if I hadn’t already broken up with you, that would’ve done it for sure. I’m the best ex girlfriend you’re _ever_ gonna have.” She added in the last sentence a self congratulatory tone.

Jason spoke slowly, raising a brow at her, “I mean, you’re flat out the _only_ ex girlfriend I’m gonna have, Piper.”

“Oh, shush,” Closing her eyes Piper hummed, looking very content with herself, “Don’t ruin my moment.” 


End file.
